


Like Diamonds

by JenCforCarolina



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 14:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11602185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: Some cave, some grow stronger.Towerfall thoughts for an OC.





	Like Diamonds

Selene always thought she would cave under pressure.

The first time the missiles hit she was too far, wasn’t fast enough. She died, but hardly a second later was back, safe behind a defender’s wall, Zavala’s hand on her collar. But there was not a word of rebuke, just a Titan clap on the back, and she thought for a moment he was Auburn.

The shield fell and they fired, the other Guardians with them fanning out. The second time she was prepared, she had _learned_. A Hunter fell, not quite making it back to the shield herself. Selene scooped the Ghost inside, shielded it with her body as the Guardian revived.

She didn’t even _think_ when the Commander shouted an order, “Someone go with Ikora!” She was already dashing across the plaza towards the door. With only one focus -running- she _realized_ what she was doing, how she had just thoughtlessly obliterated three waves of Cabal soldiers, and only died _once_. How on the whole sprint up the tower to the Plaza, she hadn’t died at all. How she was just jumping from objective to objective. Who _was_ she, what had changed?

Ikora downed a dropship with a fury of Void and Selene couldn’t even find the available sub-processes to be envious of that power. She saw only the City laid out in fire. There was red on her radar behind her, and she spun to meet it, and said “I’ll go,” into the comms before even hearing the request. _Storm the command ship,_ Zavala had said. She had just volunteered to storm the command ship. How could she-

“Amanda Holiday is on her way to pick you up.” So Selene ran, darted down Cormorant Way, fought through the mess of Cabal, found one who was hardier than the rest, and took cover behind a flaming ramen cart. She traded shots, traded blows, heard a lighting strike and took inspiration, flying forth with hands cloaked in arc and shoved them both into the beast’s armor, dumping the full force of a Stormcaller’s super into the giant tank of a being. It went off like a supernova and left the flagstones singed despite the heavy rains.

“Whoo-ee Guardian!” Amanda whooped over the comms, her ship’s searchlight casting over the balcony and cutting through the pounding rain. “Glad it’s you they’re sending.”

It was so surreal, riding in the Hawk, hand on the back of Amanda’s seat, backside braced against the door to the hold. She was _humanity’s hope_ right now, how had she gotten here?

Steeled herself. Gave a smack to the sigil painted on the top of Amanda’s cockpit -an etching of the Traveler, the machine of eternal flight- for luck.

Transmat sucked her out and onto the vessel. The rain and the wind tore at her up here, but she wasted not a moment. She was utterly alone up here, but did not feel it. She slipped in and out of cover. The Cabal were large, hulking. She was for once the agile one. She reloaded out of sight, never stopped moving, dodging. She _rampaged._ She died. She rose again. She stopped dying. She got _better_. She adapted, adjusted, improved. And she couldn’t tell _why._

Selene had always felt pressure too much, too high. Buckled when given new responsibility, new leeway. Was it possible, so simply, she had just not been given pressure enough? There was no room for error now, the fate of the world was at stake, the fate of the entire City, Humanity’s bastion was in her hands.

She killed her way to the shield generators. She killed her way out. She stood on a platform in the lessening storm and turned to face her enemy, tallest thing she’d seen in her life. She raised her weapon and fired at Ghaul, the shots harmless against bone-white armor. She was not afraid.

The Traveler left the back of her mind, it’s presence muted. Coach gave her look and managed “Selene-“ before dropping like a lead weight to the deck. The very energy that had taunted her with tantalizing power for so long was ripped out through her body, and she found herself unable to stand any longer. She was not afraid, not afraid, not afraid.

She clutched Coach’s little shell to her chest as she was thrown from Ghaul’s ship. Held on with locked fingers even as she impacted, as alarms went off in her head, damage to cerebral processes, to spinal column, to mock nerve clusters. Stand-ins for pain overwhelmed her mind, screaming DAMAGE DAMAGE DAMAGE.

But emotion centers stayed crystal clear, no panic, no fear.

She didn’t fall to impossible odds, no, she just got angry.


End file.
